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1c Objects Attributes

R has five basic classes of objects: character, numeric, integer, complex, and logical. The most basic object is a vector, which can only contain elements of the same class except lists, which can contain different classes. Numbers are generally treated as numeric objects but integers can be specified with an L suffix. There are special numbers like Inf representing infinity and NaN representing undefined values. R objects can have attributes like names, dimensions, class and length that provide additional information and can be accessed with the attributes() function.

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Benico van der Westhuizen
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23 views

1c Objects Attributes

R has five basic classes of objects: character, numeric, integer, complex, and logical. The most basic object is a vector, which can only contain elements of the same class except lists, which can contain different classes. Numbers are generally treated as numeric objects but integers can be specified with an L suffix. There are special numbers like Inf representing infinity and NaN representing undefined values. R objects can have attributes like names, dimensions, class and length that provide additional information and can be accessed with the attributes() function.

Uploaded by

Benico van der Westhuizen
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Objects

R has five basic or atomic classes of objects:


character
numeric (real numbers)
integer
complex
logical (True/False)
The most basic object is a vector
A vector can only contain objects of the same class
BUT: The one exception is a list, which is represented as a vector but can contain objects of
different classes (indeed, thats usually why we use them)
Empty vectors can be created with the vector() function.

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Numbers
Numbers in R a generally treated as numeric objects (i.e. double precision real numbers)
If you explicitly want an integer, you need to specify the L suffix
Ex: Entering 1 gives you a numeric object; entering 1L explicitly gives you an integer.
There is also a special number Inf which represents infinity; e.g. 1 / 0; Inf can be used in
ordinary calculations; e.g. 1 / Inf is 0
The value NaN represents an undefined value (not a number); e.g. 0 / 0; NaN can also be
thought of as a missing value (more on that later)

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Attributes
R objects can have attributes
names, dimnames
dimensions (e.g. matrices, arrays)
class
length
other user-defined attributes/metadata
Attributes of an object can be accessed using the attributes() function.

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